Charge dropped against ex of Orange County blast victim

An explosion at a California medical building that killed the owner of a day spa and seriously injured two patrons is being investigated as a crime after officials found remnants of an explosive device inside the spa, officials said Wednesday. (May 16)
AP

This Feb. 24 photo released by Melanie Grunder shows Stephen Beal in Newbury Park. Prosecutors have dropped charges against Beal, arrested on suspicion of having explosives after a blast killed his former girlfriend at her day spa.(Photo: Melanie Grunder, AP)

LONG BEACH - A Southern California man arrested on suspicion of having explosives after a blast killed his ex-girlfriend at her day spa has walked free after U.S. prosecutors said Tuesday that they had dropped the charge against him.

Stephen Beal was released from jail Sunday — a day after a judge approved prosecutors' request to drop a single charge of possessing an unregistered destructive device, the U.S. attorney's office said.

Beal, 59, was arrested during the investigation into the May 15 bombing that killed Ildiko Krajnyak in her Orange County spa, but he was never named as a suspect in the blast.

Federal investigators said they had discovered two improvised explosive devices, three firearms and more than 100 pounds of explosive material during a search that Beal allowed of his house.

Prosecutors dropped the charge after the FBI said it had questions about whether material found in the house met the legal definition of a "destructive device."

Beal, a model-rocket hobbyist, told investigators he had not made any bombs and did not have material for an explosion as powerful as the one he saw in news coverage.

Steve Young, a friend and neighbor, said Beal's daughter told him the explosives were determined to be legitimately purchased and stored fireworks. She also said the explosives and other evidence found in the house and her father's car did not match residues found at the crime scene.

"Everyone can see how he was a suspect because of the relationship, but they couldn't find anything," Young said. "They gathered the evidence, and the system worked, and there was nothing that could tie him to the explosion. We're just glad he's free to have his life back."

This undated selfie taken from Facebook shows Ildiko Krajnyak. Prosecutors say federal agents found explosives while searching a home owned by the former boyfriend of Krajnyak, who was killed in an explosion at a Southern California office building.(Photo: Ildiko Krajnyk, AP)

Krajnyak, 48, was killed and two female clients were seriously injured when she opened a box that erupted in a fiery explosion at the spa in the city of Aliso Viejo, about 50 miles (81 kilometers) south of Los Angeles, investigators said.

Evidence from the crime scene was still being processed and investigators were following leads, the Orange County Sheriff's Department said in a statement Tuesday. No suspect will be named in the killing until investigators have enough evidence to bring charges.

At Beal's home in Long Beach, the curtains and blinds were drawn and he did not answer the door or return messages sent to him by friends on behalf of The Associated Press.

"I feel sorry for him," said Don Westerhoff, who lives across the street. "You can be able to build rockets and not be able to build a bomb that'll blow up in a box."

Beal told investigators that he and Krajnyak had recently split up over issues of exclusivity and finances, according to an affidavit filed in court by an FBI agent. But they remained business partners.

Krajnyak, a mother and licensed cosmetologist, had just returned to California after visiting family in her native Hungary.